There's lots happening when Rift 1.9 launches tomorrow! One of the things that may have slipped your notice is a change to World Event Merchants. The following currencies will no longer be required after the start of 1.9:

• Otherworldly Sourcestone
• Ancient Golden Dragon Egg Shell
• Rune King’s Seal

In other words, you have about a day to get those spent. All of the reward items from 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3 will be removed so Trion can "give them out in new and more exciting ways."

Starting the next update after 1.9, Dragon Tears and Magma Opals will be obsolete.  Unique Snowflakes, Glass Beads, and Carnival Prize Tickets will always remain useful, and will have their description changed to let you know they are an annual currency.

Read more about this change on the official Rift forums. Learn more about all the currencies in Rift from our Currencies Guide!

On Friday, June 22nd, Trion held a pre-1.9 round-table discussion with several popular MMORPG sites. Hal Hanlin (Design Producer) and Scott Hartsman (Executive Producer) answered questions from each of the sites about the features that will be seen this Monday when patch 1.9 goes live.

Rift's patch 1.9, Conquest, is scheduled to launch on June 27th and brings a lot of goodies to the game: Conquest (three-faction PvP), new instant adventures, a new sliver, barbershops, mentoring, and a world event to kick things off! 

What could possibly add to all the excitement? A new Rift: Storm Legion video from the E3 demo! Check it out below.

Traversing Telara is an exclusive series of articles from Trion Worlds that explores Rift's lore and gameplay mechanics through the eyes of one intrepid adventurer. It's a great read and a fantastic introduction to the world of Telara. Even if you're a veteran of Rift, you might enjoy hearing about the game from another perspective! Read on for Traversing Telara #13: The Fae and Fathomlord!

Catch up on all the past issues of Traversing Telara here!

RIFT 1.8 Hotfix #14 - 8:00am PDT 6/20/12 [NA] - 1:00am GMT/2:00am BST 21/6/12 [EU]

INFERNAL DAWN: MAELFORGE

• Flamebound Devils no longer cast Concussive Bolt.
• Flamebound Ifrits no longer cast Burning Flesh.
• Increased the time between Flamebound minion spawns.
• Reduced the health of Flamebound minions.
• Increased the melee damage buff provided by Blade of the Inferno, and increased its duration.
• Blade of the Inferno now increases damage against Flamebound minions as well as against Maelforge.
• Disabled Concussive Splash in the final Maelforge encounter. This was active in testing but disabled before the Maelforge fight went live - so returning it to that inactive state.
• Fixed Devastating Sacrifice not applying the right amount of damage increase.

RIFT 1.8 Hotfix #13 - 8:00am PDT 6/13/12 [NA] - 1:00am GMT/2:00am BST 14/6/12 [EU]

INFERNAL DAWN [Raid]

• Players will now be locked to an Infernal Dawn instance after defeating either Gorlach, Bouldergut, or Muglak.
• Maelforge:
• - Players can no longer cast spells while enveloped by Pyreflies.
• - After reviewing the Spires phase of the Maelforge encounter, we've made some changes to deal with the under-tuned minion effects intended to engage melee character play. We've also looked into other concerns from melee specs and have added a mechanism for melee characters to fight Maelforge directly, provided by defeating Spire minions.
• - Spire minion health reduced slightly.
• - Increased the effect and duration of Maelforge's Sacrifice buffs.
• - Spire minions now grant a buff to nearby players when defeated, increasing their melee damage and providing them immunity to Maelforge's cone attacks. Tank targeting effects and buffs negate this melee boost.
• - Added more checks to the start of phase 4 to prevent it from activating early.

GENERAL
Fixed odd camera behavior while your character is polymorphed and on non-level terrain.
Added safeguards against equipment procs remaining active even though the source item was unequipped.

Traversing Telara is an exclusive series of articles from Trion Worlds that explores Rift's lore and gameplay mechanics through the eyes of one intrepid adventurer. It's a great read and a fantastic introduction to the world of Telara. Even if you're a veteran of Rift, you might enjoy hearing about the game from another perspective! Read on for Traversing Telara #12: Laethys and Sylver Valis!

Catch up on all the past issues of Traversing Telara here!

Amary posted on the official forums:

The NA region shards will be coming down for a quick restart at 3:00am PDT, 6/8/12. There will be no hotfix/patch notes associated with this restart. Total estimated downtime is at ** 20 minutes **. 

Here's our handy Time Zone Conversion Tool to help you plan!  Or you could just go to bed....

Trion held a 16 minute live stream at E3 today, during which they gave players their first look at the upcoming expansion, Storm Legion. The scenery for a few of the dungeons were briefly shown as well as two of the overlands, one of which is interior. Several juicy tidbits were dropped during this live stream, detailed below.

• The theme of the expansion is the "Rise of Crucia" and the discovery of the two new continents.
• Quite a bit of lost technology is present on these continents; a "magi-tech feel" was used throughout the expansion areas.
• The two new continents will make the existing world three times larger than what it currently is.
• Patches will still continue to happen: 1.9 and 1.10 were mentioned.
• A "new PTS server for the expansion" was briefly mentioned--possibly a beta server.
• They're "pretty sure there will be a digital collector's edition."
• More information on "dimensions", Trion's take on housing, will be released in the near future.

The overland areas shown were called Ashora and Tower of Dawn. Tower of Dawn is an interior, non-instanced overland, which is a break how contested content is currently presented in Rift. Two dungeons called Empryean Core (for level 60s) and Golem Foundry were also briefly shown.

While in Ashora, the QA team took on an epic, end-game difficulty battle against a colossi named Volan. New techniques such as power-up abilities were shown, and Volan even altered the geometry of the world during the battle; for example, at one point he broke through a wall to open up new areas. Ashora also featured purple orbs which are launchpads that spring your character (and mount!) high into the air.

We snagged some exciting screenshots from the live stream, which you can also watch in its entirety after the jump!

RIFT 1.8 Hotfix #12 - 8:00am PDT 6/6/12 [NA] - 1:00am GMT/2:00am BST 7/6/12 [EU]

INFERNAL DAWN

• Maelforge:
• - Addressed encounter reset issues caused by Feign Death and Slip Away.
• - Battle-res should no longer cause reset issues at the final platform.
• - Maelforge should land more reliably on the final platform after the air phase.

GENERAL

• [NA] The 'Surveyor' title should now be automatically granted to players completing the recent RIFT survey.